


Dimitri Week: King of Revenge

by winryrockbae



Series: dimitriweek2019 [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dimitri Week 2019, F/M, dimacember, dimacember2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:02:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21823357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winryrockbae/pseuds/winryrockbae
Summary: None of them understand how it feels to have the dead lingering over his shoulder. Seducing and cruel, weaving their fingers through his hair and whispering sweet nothings like a familiar lover.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Series: dimitriweek2019 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1572544
Kudos: 31





	Dimitri Week: King of Revenge

**Author's Note:**

> Day One of Dimitri Week! I hope to keep up with this all seven days! 
> 
> First prompt already took me out so let's prepare for the hurt I'm going to feel/cause in the next six days.

_We want her head._

Weeks had passed, or maybe it was months. Had it been years since he’d had a clear thought? Relished in a singular memory unclouded by rage or guilt. A moment to himself in which the dead didn’t croon sweetly in his ear to offer their false redemption. They never gave him peace, not for a minute.

Day and night their words curled around his throat like ghostly tendrils, relentlessly choking him with their singular demand.

_Her head, Dimitri. Avenge us._

Screams followed. Echoing off what remained of the cathedral’s walls like the pained wails of a wounded creature. Each one tearing violently from his throat again and again until he was left panting like a frenzied animal, ragged breath coming in short and hot in the crisp morning air of the silent ruins.

If he truly listened to the voices, he would be able to tell that they weren’t the ones he had lost. The voices he heard were apparitions of his own desires. He was lost, set to endlessly wander without direction or drive. But they gave him a purpose, a vague idea of where to set his next step. A way to push forward when he knew of nothing but the past. They were his way of punishing himself. And perhaps even justifying the violence he so craved.

_**You owe us.** _

He had failed them in life. Each one fallen while he lived. It was his duty to pay tribute to them in death.

She would join them one day. The anticipation of it nearly killed him. Caused him bruised knuckles and bloody lips from tearing at himself in the chilling silence of a cathedral night. Just before he was able to drift off for a few hours of restless sleep, slumped against a pillar or resting on an abandoned bench he’d remember the last time he saw her.

As if to punish himself, he’d recall over and over the moment of slight hesitation in his stride as he gave chase, losing her slender form in the chaos. He’d gotten caught up with a few soldiers, lance striking and gutting as he desperately searched for the telltale glow of her hero’s relic. If he had elongated his stride, done away with the split second of hesitation he could have been with her in battle. Saved her from whatever fate it was that she suffered. She would know. And she would blame him.

She’d appear before him as an ethereal beauty, glowing and pristine. But angry. She would shriek and tear at him, demanding why he hadn’t saved her. Her cries would be mixed in with the others snarling demands.

“Dimitri.”

Just as he imagined, she appeared before him one day and he braced himself for it. The rush of pure rage as the voice that soothed him so many years ago brought along a new form of torment. He made no movement, slouched over his lance. It was the only friend he had left in the world.

“I should have known. That one day you would be haunting me as well.” It’s been so long since he’s spoken to another living person that his rounds grates against even his own ears, like a sword being dragged over gravel.

“Dimitri.” She repeats.

Her voice was as clear as a silver bell and just as he remembered it. This was no apparition. The way his name fell from her lips poured over him like cool water, soothing the wounds he’d hidden away to lick in the dark. There’s a fleeting urge to fall at her feet like the loyalpuppy of a student she’d known so long ago. She could make things right.

_Don’t forget what you owe us, King._

His lip curled up, baring his teeth in a sneer. He must be quite a sight to someone who remembered him as a naive prince. Covered in dirt and dried blood, unsure of it’s origin. He glares at her with his good eye, out from under his unruly locks and he can feel the anger swell in his chest.

“Where. Where were you?” She reaches out to him and he ignores her hand.

“Asleep.” She answers so swiftly and surely that it’s hard to believe that she could be twisting a lie. She was never one for lying, anyway. But everyone had changed.

His grip around his lance tightened as he stood, he towered over her now but she didn’t flinch. If it were a normal weapon it would have shattered under his fingers, instead it seemed to vibrate with anticipation. The voices are howling at him now, his moment of weakness caused them all such a panic. She would soften him, he would never get their revenge if he fell in line for her again.

“Remain here if you must, but stay out of my sight.”

She doesn’t protest, but she also doesn’t obey. It’s only to be expected, she always did what she wanted. Even after her other former students start filtering back into the Monastery to fill up their old school dormitories, she returns to him multiple times every day. He hides away sometimes but she always finds him. The voices of the dead grow louder when there is the threat of them being outheard by those of the living.

So he stops hiding. He lets them all see him for what he is. A boar, a beast, a godless monster. He speaks to them constantly in the openness of the cathedral, staring listlessly at the rubble until his eye burned and his vision went blurry.

They voice their concerns within his earshot as though they believe that he cannot hear them, or maybe they want him to. He never even twitches in their direction. Felix is perhaps the worst offender, spitting insults at him in some sort of heroic attempt to break through.

They want to see anything, even if it’s anger. They cannot stand listening to him murmur to the dead any longer.

None of them understand how it feels to have the dead lingering over his shoulder. Seducing and cruel, weaving their fingers through his hair and whispering sweet nothings like a familiar lover.

_The Empress’s head, Dimitri. Bring it to us, our devoted King._

For the most part he’s able to ignore them all of them, he didn’t deserve to speak to the living when the dead were so loud. The ghostly voices that plague him day and night don’t allow his thoughts to wander anywhere close to the professor or his former friends.

Gilbert grates on his nerves the worst of all of them. His visions and expectations of grandeur and royalty too far lost to be anything other than annoying. Whenever the man spoke, Dimitri felt like a cat being pet against the direction of its fur. Gilbert’s words did nothing but make him itch. Worse than the professors silent concern or Felix spitting “Boar” at him every chance he got.

“Your Highness, please. You have to consider-”

“No.” His voice is beastly, inhuman.

“Please. You are the Rightful King of-”

“I said no. Now leave me be, old man. Before I decide that your head would look better rolling around my feet.” Dimitri growled. The words came from so deep in his chest he knew that he meant them. He would do it, what was one more voice haunting him at night when he already had so many.

You’re the King. You’re the King. The only one who is worthy of avenging us. It’s your duty.

“Dimitri.” Her voice again, as soft and as pure as a snowdrop. He shouldn’t even be in the same room as her, lest he taint her.

“I told you to leave me alone as well. Would you like me to make you regret setting foot near me?” He hardly knows what he means by it. Maybe he means he’d give into those beastly urges he had when he looked at her for too long. Skin pale and unclaimed, begging for him to mark her up. “Your head is too pretty to lob off, but I’m sure I’d be able to make use of your body.”

“You’re not that cruel.” For the first time, her voice has an edge to it. Her patience with him is wearing thin. She knows that his threat is empty and it’s clear she’s tired of being cast aside. But pushing her away calmed the voices, they didn’t become terrified at the thought of their tribute slipping through Dimitri’s fingers if he wrapped himself around her.

“You don’t know me anymore.” He’s tired too. He doesn’t sleep and hardly eats, they never leave him alone. She reaches for him and he slaps her hand away, paying no mind to his strength. “I’m no King.”

_You’re **our** King. Don’t her her get in the way. _

The broken look she gives him stings as her hand is wordlessly cradled to her chest. He easily could have broken her bones, he might have. He leaves her then, ignoring the flush of jealousy creeping up his neck as Gilbert reached for her injured hand. Don’t touch her. Don’t -

_Don’t you dare forget our Tribute._

The walk to the goddess tower is loathsome, he berates himself. Even a boar wouldn’t have said such things to her. It was cruel, terrifying. He should apologize to her. Even if he was no King, he had to have some sense of decency left.

His ghosts were jittery with delight over his actions, no longer would she interfere with their voices.

_Our King. Our King of Revenge._

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on twitter @winryrockbae


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